Serena and the Mysterious Labyrinth - Chapter 66

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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66. The Path to Rescue the Prince

Marine. A tall beauty with blue hair and blue eyes, armed with an axe and sword. Though her color combination suggested she might serve the Water God, she was a holy knight of the Fire God.

As a peculiarity, she wore a necklace that read “Silent Practice 10 minutes.”

“We must hurry to rescue the Prince.”

During silent practice, a simple bow would suffice, but Marine deliberately spoke. The number on her necklace automatically changed from 10 minutes to 0.

‘Is she really doing silent practice?’

She seemed a bit eccentric, but three yellow stars floated above her head with two transparent ones – whether lacking equipment or for other reasons, she was a 3-star holy knight who could become 5-star at any time. She was strong.

“Everyone, huff, hello. Nice to see you again. Huff huff.”

Rihua. A beauty with white hair, red eyes, and extremely pale skin indicating albinism. Her entirely white appearance and delicate frame made her look sickly while simultaneously evoking a protective instinct.

As Ying had mentioned before, she was a priest of the Light God. Three yellow stars floated above her head. She was a 3-star priest.

“Hello, Princess. I’m so glad you’re safe. I was really, really worried!”

Muffin Baker. A noble young lady with shocking pink hair and a sweet name who made Serena wonder if this world was a romance fantasy genre.

Her father Count Baker belonged to the Crown Prince Faction and harbored ambitions to make his daughter queen, so she often played with Seraph when they were young.

‘5-star?’

Surprisingly, five yellow stars floated above Muffin’s pink hair. She was a girl with a talent for surprising the Princess every time they met.

‘Does a god really favor her that much?’

Muffin’s outfit was different from when she was found dead from eating poisonous mushrooms. It seemed Count Randy had provided her with new clothes when they met yesterday.

“Coming all the way to such a dangerous place. Ugh, since you’re here anyway, please scold Lord Seraph after rescuing him! You must!”

“I had no idea Miss Muffin could use divine magic.”

“If it were divine magic from another god, I would have bragged about it everywhere, but it’s the Corruption God. Ugh, there’s nothing but dirty and disgusting magic, so I hid it.”

All the surrounding priests were shocked by the blasphemy coming from a fellow priest. Muffin smiled sweetly regardless of whether people around her were surprised or not.

Finally, Hazel. She was a high priest of the Earth God. A middle-aged woman with brown hair who combined a sturdy build with an intellectual impression. As her age suggested, she had the most experience among the four and held the highest position.

Therefore, she took charge of the party despite being from a different denomination. Befitting her title of high priest and her impression that combined literary and martial qualities, she was 5-star.

“This is our first meeting since the Royal Palace. I’m glad you’re safe.”

“Mm, I’m glad everyone is safe.”

With that, Serena finished introductions with all four. They were all envoys from various denominations who came to celebrate Heuji’s thousandth founding anniversary, so the Princess had greeted them at the Royal Palace.

Only Hazel remained in Serena’s memory. Even that was only because the Earth denomination was powerful and Hazel’s position was considerable, so she forcibly memorized it and it stuck in her head.

Of course, Muffin was excluded. Setting aside their acquaintance, that natural pink hair was absolutely unforgettable.

‘When I first saw her, I wondered if Muffin was the protagonist.’

And my sibling would be just a pretty sub-male character or a villain.

‘All women and all priests.’

Moreover, all beauties. The combination was quite fascinating. If you put Seraph in the middle of the four, it would complete a harem party as Olive said.

Serena envied something else.

‘Two 5-stars with yellow stars and no transparent or gray stars? Plus Marine is actually 5-star too. We only have one count here?’

A party where the 3-star priest Rihua was the weakest member. She was so envious her stomach turned.

Serena’s starting companions were three 1-stars and one 2-star. But Seraph’s starting companions had 3-star as their lowest. Even all of them could use divine magic and were priests with guaranteed minimum decency.

‘Lucky too.’

She knew from her sibling’s gambling win rate that his luck was quite good, but she didn’t expect his companion luck to be good too.

With such good luck, why did he keep dying like a sunfish and get captured by a boss monster?

Serena pondered whether her sibling’s luck was good or bad, then cleared her head.

“Huff huff.”

Climbing the stairs was so exhausting she couldn’t think about anything. She was about to forget all the names of the priests she’d just met.

‘Still a long way to go.’

It was good that Hazel, the high priest of the Earth God, had turned the cliff into stairs, but climbing the stairs was also difficult.

Rock climbing could be given up entirely, but stairs were more vicious in that they could be climbed if you endured and persevered.

‘Just how many stairs are there? 3,000? No. A 60-story building was about 1,000, so roughly 1,000?’

The spiral stairs on the towering peak made her dizzy as they went round and round.

The stairs were narrow enough for only two women of average build to barely stand side by side, and naturally had no safety devices, so Serena pressed against the cliff to rest whenever she felt dizzy.

“Didn’t you say you were going down to the 4th Layer when we parted?”

What on earth had happened that people who went down to the 4th Layer returned to the 3rd Layer and the Prince got taken by a Floor Boss?

When Count Randy asked about the situation, the four priests sighed without exception.

Hazel, tacitly appointed as leader, revealed the circumstances.

“It’s true we went down to the 4th Layer. The 4th Layer was extremely dark.”

“Darkness?”

Ying’s eyes lit up at the mention of darkness. Olive gestured for the archer to be quiet before she said something useless.

“It wasn’t ordinary darkness. Even when Priest Rihua used divine magic, it was difficult to secure vision – a strange darkness enveloped the entire layer.”

“Strong darkness?”

“Zero, shh! Shhh!”

“It was at a level where we could advance if Priest Rihua pushed herself, so the Prince demanded we press on… But all the monsters that appeared were undead.”

“Crazy. Undead appeared again? And as regular monsters, not bosses?”

“Yes. All the monsters we encountered were undead. We convinced the Prince that we’d run out of food if we continued like this, so we returned to the 3rd Layer. Since we were already retracing our steps, we wanted to find and visit the Princess who was said to be on the 1st Floor, but…”

“We all agreed to go to the 1st Floor, so we tried to persuade the Prince together, but…”

“When Lord Seraph gets very angry, he can’t control his temper and wanders around grumbling loudly. This time too, he was wandering around in a rage when suddenly Condor Leader flew down from the sky and snatched Lord Seraph away.”

“We also turned our eyes away briefly to calm our anger at the Prince’s insulting words, but we didn’t expect that to happen. We immediately tried to rescue the Prince, but unfortunately we lacked a ranged attacker, so we were blindly chasing the condor.”

Four priests who could use divine magic plus one prince. Seraph was the weakest member of the party.

Perhaps frustrated at having to helplessly watch such a prince get snatched by a monster, Marine apologized to Serena with a dejected expression.

“We’re truly sorry.”

The time written on her necklace became 0 again.

‘Is she really doing silent practice? Is the necklace just decoration?’

“That’s not so. If you had attacked carelessly, the condor might have dropped Seraph. I should be grateful that you didn’t give up and came to rescue him like this.”

Honestly, from Serena’s perspective, she was grateful that the priests came to rescue the trash instead of abandoning him.

‘That bastard’s personality is something else.’

“The Princess is right. Didn’t we gather like this because the priests didn’t abandon the Prince and came to help?”

Ralph was pleased, calling this also fate’s guidance. It seemed like several adventure tales of heroes who met by destiny were unfolding in the young knight’s head.

“I’ve heard that Zero’s Ying is an archer who never misses. Please take care of us.”

Marine requested a handshake, expecting Ying’s performance. Ying silently took the holy knight’s hand and shook it.

“Please take care of us.”

Rihua requested a handshake in a small voice. Ying ignored the Servant of Light’s handshake request and climbed the stairs two steps at a time.

“Huh?”

When Rihua looked bewildered at being ignored, Olive took the abandoned priest’s white hand.

“Ignore her, Priest. She just loves darkness so much. Oh my, you have blisters on your hands, Priest. Did you get hurt from your staff?”

“I think I gripped the rope too tightly while crossing the swaying bridge.”

“That must have hurt~ Why didn’t you heal it?”

“If I use healing magic for something like this, I’ll exhaust the power the Light granted me. I have to illuminate the light on the 4th Layer. We’ll face a Floor Boss soon, so I need to save it to heal anyone who gets injured then.”

“I see~”

Olive leaned her shoulder against Rihua, who was similar in height, acting friendly. The black and white contrast was vivid, making them look quite well-matched on the surface.

‘Is she hitting on her? Or is she acting friendly in advance because of the talk about the 4th Layer being dark with undead?’

Olive could easily do both simultaneously and more.

She needed to prevent the innocent priest from being manipulated by the selfish guide.

But right now, she didn’t have the energy to interfere with such matters.

“Huff, hufff.”

“Lady Serena, if you’re tired, you can wait below.”

“Huff, no, no.”

Count Randy, who was surprisingly fine and gave Serena a sense of betrayal, worried about the Princess. Currently, Serena was far behind. When Serena tried to get up somehow, Hazel helped her.

“Since I cannot participate in battle, I’ll attend to the Princess. Please go ahead.”

“You can’t, haa, participate in battle?”

“I’m sorry. I exhausted all the power the Earth granted me by creating the stairs.”

Hazel supported Serena up the stairs while apologizing to the Princess and her companions. Everyone shook their heads in unison.

“High Priest Hazel has done enough by creating the path.”

“That’s right, thanks to High Priest Hazel, we got to climb stairs instead of a cliff. This is enough.”

“High Priest Hazel is the greatest contributor! Right, Serena?”

Muffin, who despite being a noble lady bounced around the stairs and planted the second betrayal in Serena’s heart, spoke cheerfully and disappeared upward.

“Miss Muffin is, huff, why is she so, fine….”

To ask if this was youth when there was only a two-year age difference.

“I heard she learned martial arts because the power of decay requires physical contact to manifest.”

Muffin Baker wasn’t just a priest but a combat priest who doubled as a martial artist—a monk. Serena admired the noble lady who looked like bouncing cotton candy from a distance.

‘So that’s why she was 5-star!’

A 5-star monk. A 5-star high priest. She was so envious of her sibling who had started with Muffin and Hazel as companions. Since Muffin was favored by the gods and Hazel was a high priest, both would know many divine spells and have many uses.

Marine? Marine was tentatively 5-star too, but since she didn’t know the conditions for filling the transparent stars, let’s skip that. Armed with sword and axe and properly armored, yet with two transparent stars, it seemed something other than equipment was lacking.

‘To have such good starting companions yet die like a sunfish.’

Once she rescued her sibling this time, she would keep them in the lobby and absolutely not let them go below the 1st floor.

Serena soothed her lungs that felt like they would cough up blood and gritted her teeth as she lifted her legs.

***

When Serena reached the peak summit with Hazel’s help, the party that had arrived at the summit earlier was already in combat with the Condor Leader.

While Serena had been diligently climbing the stairs, the party had been diligently beating up the condor.

The condor’s body was decayed and hollowed out in places, the feathers that should have soared through the sky were burned black to powder, and an arrow was stuck in one of the eyes that should have been gazing down from the vast sky.

There was no need to regret the lack of ranged attackers.

A 3-star holy knight and a 5-star monk together beat the Condor Leader to powder. Honestly, it seemed like either one alone could have handled it.

“Pink priest! The beak and claws are expensive, so don’t let them rot!”

“Please be careful not to burn the wing feathers too! They’re precious materials!”

Olive and Count Randy retreated far back and shouted to hit gently so as not to damage the materials. When the condor, unable to endure the rotting beatings and burning axe strikes, tried to escape.

“Let there be light!”

Flash!

An intense light that made everything blindingly white even in broad daylight burst in the condor’s eyes.

The Condor Leader became dizzy and couldn’t spread its wings, collapsing back down. Then once it touched the ground again, rotting punches and kicks, and axe and sword strikes that guaranteed third-degree burns poured down.

Ying concentrated arrows on the wings to prevent escape. Serena wanted to extract her sibling early in case they got caught up in combat and died while the Condor Leader was being one-sidedly beaten, so she looked for her sibling. They weren’t visible.

Kweeeeeeeok!

The Labyrinth Condor couldn’t endure the attacks packed with additional effects and collapsed. The battle ended before Serena’s breathing and heartbeat could even calm down.

[You have defeated a Floor Boss. Shop 1 coins will be awarded.]

On the 3rd layer, they had already discovered stairs and received shop coins. Since usually only one of stairs or boss gives rewards, she hadn’t expected it, but received 1 shop coin.

‘Is it giving extra because the layer difficulty is high? The battle only had Ying as a participant from our party, but they’re acknowledging this. Did they judge it as cooperation?’

It was an unexpected gain.

But what mattered now wasn’t coins. Serena tried to erase the condor corpse that occupied half the nest at the peak’s edge from her vision while looking for the golden-glowing figure.

The others also peered around the nest and looked around searching for Seraph like Serena. Even searching every corner of the nest, the prince was nowhere to be seen.

“Could he have been crushed under the condor?”

“Count! Please dismantle the condor!”

Count Randy forcibly shoved the golden scales under the condor corpse and traded it for materials like meat, feathers, beak, and claws. The income was disappointing compared to the massive size.

“It’s because there are many decayed and burned parts. We’re fortunate to have salvaged the eyes, beak, claws, heart, and magic stone.”

With the condor that had filled the nest gone, the view became clear. Serena ordered Count Randy to collect the precious materials and searched for her sibling in the space created by the condor’s disappearance.

No matter how much she searched, they weren’t visible.

Seraph wasn’t in the condor’s nest.

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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